Illinois governor race: Quinn, Brady in a squeaker

November 03, 2010

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn predicted victory early Wednesday as he clung to a narrow lead in the contest for governor, but Republican challenger Bill Brady refused to concede until all ballots were counted.

"The people have won, and I believe we have won," Quinn told supporters shortly before 1 a.m. at a downtown Chicago hotel. "We know there are more votes to be counted, but we are ahead."

Quinn had a lead of 8,300 votes out of more than 3.3 million ballots cast with 99 percent of precincts counted, unofficial totals showed. Quinn and Brady each had 46 percent with a trio of third-party candidates at a combined 8 percent.

Ballots in more than 200 precincts across the state had not been counted, more than half from Chicago and suburban Cook County that likely would lean toward Quinn. But Brady's camp cautioned that "thousands" of other forms of votes such as absentee and military ballots had yet to be counted.

"Some of you may have realized by now, I have a penchant for close elections. It seems to be something that always ends up on the right side," Brady told a crowd at his campaign headquarters in his hometown of Bloomington.

Brady won a crowded race for the Republican governor nomination in February by 193 votes out of 750,000 ballots cast. In Brady's first race for the state House in 1992, he upset a veteran Republican lawmaker by eight votes in the primary.

Brien Sheahan, general counsel to the Illinois Republican Party, said a potential 30,000 absentee votes are uncounted statewide. Those include more than 4,400 in Chicago, presumed to favor Democrats, and about 9,500 in the collar counties, he said.

Election officials on Wednesday will begin cross-checking absentee ballots against ballots cast Tuesday to prevent people from voting twice. Chicago and Cook County election officials said they don't expect to count absentee ballots until Thursday at the soonest.

A Quinn victory would be the most significant of his three-decade political career as a populist activist-turned-politician. He has been state treasurer and lieutenant governor, but became the "accidental governor" 22 months ago after the disgraced Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office.

The governor also was trying to keep Democrats in control of an office won in 2002 following the scandal-tarred tenure of Republican Gov. George Ryan. He was later convicted on federal corruption charges, sending the state GOP into a downward spiral.